


Dinner Plans

by SunnyD_lite



Category: The Sentinel
Genre: Gen, Slice of Life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-04-05
Updated: 2010-04-05
Packaged: 2017-10-08 17:58:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 912
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/78065
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SunnyD_lite/pseuds/SunnyD_lite
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"You're planning on serving me smuggled powder?"</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dinner Plans

**Author's Note:**

> TamingtheMuse Prompt: 160 Trump Card  
> A/N: Any concrit would be appreciated, Jim was being grumpy on me.

"You're going to love it! I got the recipe from a friend who's just back from a study in the Andes and she even ground some of the spices herself!"

Watching the overstuffed backpack preceding him, Jim wondered where Sandburg get his energy – green protein shakes couldn't be that good. Countering his thoughts, the young man bounded up the three flights to the loft. The elevator was out, again. He'd have to complain to the Condo Corporation; his maintenance fees had to be paying for something.

"You're planning on serving me smuggled powder?" Jim could feel his eyebrow arch. "Have you thought this through?" His taste buds hadn't acted up in a while, but that was one sense he really didn't like being surprised by.

Sandburg quit digging through the outer pockets for his keys. "No worries. I'll be testing it first and plus, it's from the same region where—"

Jim terminated that line of conversation by inserting the key and opening the loft door. Sandburg never stopped. He'd refused to talk about his time in Peru, and no spices were going to change his mind. The fact he couldn't clearly recall most of his time was not something he wanted to examine too closely. If a man was the sum of his memories—

Rolling his eyes at Jim's subtle change of topic, Blair continued, "I just mean you'll be able to tell me how authentic the recipe is." He'd dropped his bag on the dining room table and was now digging through the main section. "Not that I could get monkey and thought maybe rabbit would make a good substitute. Or do you think emu? It's mostly dark meat, but the birds live a good life and there's very little waste, so it's much more eco-friendly than current industrial cattle farms."

"Chief, I don't care."

Sandburg turned from the table to face him, a large baggie in his hand. "But you should, I mean everyone should – we are what we eat, as they say—but you especially shouldn't be taxing your body with strange chemicals and who knows."

Jim watched the bag swayed back and forth as Blair's hands began waving in counter point to his wild hair. "If that spills everywhere.."

"If what?" Sandburg blinked then stared at the baggie. "Oh man, I'm supposed to mix them in specific ratios. This sucks." But he put the baggie down without it exploding, so Jim was counting it as a win.

"Okay where was I?" The student pulled out a many folded paper square. "So, emu?"

"Chief, it's late. I'm hungry. I'm not hunting down emu meat or sniffing spices. Let's just call for a pizza or Chinese and eat?" Jim had hung up his coat, and Blair's coat and was straightening up the three magazines on the coffee table. Today may not have contained terrorists or international jewel thieves but backlog paper work was its own kind of exhausting. Plus it never had the upside of an adrenaline rush or the same sense of satisfaction of cuffing a perp.

"Despite it being Tuesday, I don't think so."

"Tuesday?" Was it only Tuesday? Hopefully they'd have a real case tomorrow. Or maybe he could use this Sentinel thing to avoid cold cases; all that dust? Caught up in his thoughts, Jim almost missed Sandburg's retort.

"Tuesday, one of your three days to plan dinner? Along with Thursday and Friday? I'm going to skip over the fact that you tend to order in every time while I actually plan ahead, but"

Jim wanted to ignore him, but he'd learnt the hard way that Sandburg could hold a dramatic pause for a long, long time. Kid needed an audience, and Jim seemed to be assigned.

"But?"

He didn't like Sandburg's smile. Sandburg had a whole catalogue of smiles and this one Jim filed under diabolical. It usually came out just before Sandburg explained 'this one new test' he needed Jim to do. "Oh no, Chief. I don't know what you're thinking, but just no."

"Hey." The flash in his partner's eyes meant the next bit was his trump card. "You get to skipped dinner duty, help expand our knowledge _and_ knock a test off the list at the same time." And there went the puppy dog eyes. He was pretty sure Sandburg didn't mean to use them. At least not here. Logic, Jim could fight. Inconvenience, he could fight. Change, he could fight. But he could never let Major Crimes know he'd cave at the puppy dog eyes.

"This is a win for me, how?"

But the smile on Blair's face meant he'd read Jim's tone properly.

"Actually, tonight we can have pizza. This dish takes almost six hours to cook. Thanks so much for helping me with this one, Big Guy. It's for an article on the transmutation of ethnic cuisine as substitutions for traditional ingredients occur. Or as I'm thinking of calling it, from Hot tamale to Taco Bell. I'll even pay for the pizza."

Jim turned his head-- someone was struggling with the buildings front door, holding a whole wheat crust and eggplant pizza. His back stiffened, until he caught a whiff of sausage, too. Guess the kid was learning. "The pizza you pre-ordered? It's here."

The look of amazement always made him uncomfortable. "You can tell that? I so need to recalibrate the hearing tests."

He'd remembered the sausage. Dinner was here. Right now that trumped everything. "Let's just eat."


End file.
